Expert: Iran protests are part of a long struggle for freedom and equality

Across Iran, protests have erupted over the killing of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in police custody after being apprehended for not wearing her hijab correctly.

The protestors’ bold acts of defiance against Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the regime he represents are part of a long struggle for democracy, sovereignty, and independence among people in Iran, says Abbas Milani, the director of the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University.

Milano is an adjunct professor at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is a founding co-director of the Iran Democracy Project. His scholarship examines US-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues.

Here, he discusses how Iranians have been fighting for freedom and equality for almost 150 years and how Amini’s death is the latest centerpiece in that push for independence:

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